Vida's Art of Poetry
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Vida's Art of Poetry - Marco Girolamo Vida
VIDA’S ART OF POETRY
..................
Marco Girolamo Vida
Translated by Christopher Pitt
LACONIA PUBLISHERS
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Copyright © 2016 by Marco Girolamo Vida
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Book I.
Book II.
Book III.
VIDA’S
ART of POETRY,
Translated into
ENGLISH VERSE,
By the Reverend
Mr. CHRISTOPH. PITT, A.M.
Late Fellow of New-College in Oxford, Rector of Pimpern in Dorsetshire, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable PHILIP, Earl Stanhope, &c.
To the Right Honourable
PHILIP,
Earl Stanhope, Viscount Mahon, and Baron Elvaston,
THIS
TRANSLATION,
OF
Vida’s Art of Poetry,
Is Dedicated by
His Lordship’s
Humble Servant and Chaplain,
Christopher Pitt.
VIDA’S
ART of POETRY, &c.
BOOK I.
..................
GIVE me, ye sacred muses, to impart
The hidden secrets of your tuneful art;
Give me your awful mysteries to sing,
Unlock, and open wide, your sacred spring;
While from his infancy the Bard I lead,
And seat him on your mountain’s lofty head;
Direct his course, and point him out the road
To sing in Epick strains a hero or a god.
What youth, whose gen’rous bosom pants for praise,
Will dare with me to beat those arduous ways?
O’er high Parnassus’ painful steeps to go,
And leave the grov’ling multitude below:
Where the glad muses sing, and form the choir,
Where bright Apollo strikes the silver lyre.
Approach thou first, great Francis, nor refuse
To pay due honours to the sacred muse;
While Gallia waits for thy auspicious reign,
Till age compleats the monarch in the man;
Mean time the muse may bring some small relief,
To charm thy anguish, and suspend thy grief;
While guilty fortune’s stern decrees detain
Thee, and thy brother in the realms of Spain;
Far, far transported from your native place,
Your country’s, father’s, and your friends’ embrace!
Such are the terms the cruel fates impose
On your great father, struggling with his woes,
These are their hard conditions:–-They require
The sons, to purchase, and redeem the sire.
But yet, brave youth, from grief, from tears abstain,
Fate may relent, and heav’n grow mild again;
At last perhaps the glorious day may come,
The day that brings our royal exile home;
When, to thy native realms in peace restor’d,
The ravish’d crowds shall hail their passing lord;
When each transported city shall rejoice,
And nations bless thee with a public voice;
To the throng’d fanes the matrons shall repair;
Absolve their vows; and breathe their souls in pray’r.
Till then, let ev’ry muse engage thy love,
With me at large o’er high Parnassus rove,
Range every bow’r, and sport in ev’ry grove.
First then observe that verse is ne’er confin’d
To one fixt measure, or determin’d kind;
Tho’ at its birth it sung the gods alone,
And then religion claim’d it for her own;
In sacred verse addressed the deity,
And spoke a language worthy of the sky;
New themes succeeding bards began to chuse,
And in a wider field engag’d the muse;
The common bulk of subjects to rehearse
In all the rich varieties of verse.
Yet none of all with equal honors shine,
(But those which celebrate the pow’r divine,)
To those exalted measures which declare,
The deeds of heroes, and the sons of war.
From hence posterity the name bestow’d
On this rich present of the delphick god;
Fame says, Phemonoe in this measure gave
Apollo’s answers from the Pythian cave.
But e’er you write, consult your strength, and chuse
A theme proportion’d justly to your muse.
For tho’ in chief these precepts are bestow’d
On him, who sings an hero or a god;
To other themes their gen’ral use extends,
And serves in different views to different ends.
Whether the lofty muse with tragick rage
Would proudly stalk in buskins on the stage;
Or in soft elegies our pity move,
And show the youth in all the flames of love;
Or sing the shepherd’s woes in humble strains,
And the low humours of contending swains;
These faithful rules shall guide the bard along
In every measure, argument, and song.
Be sure, (whatever you propose to write,)
Let the chief motive be your own delight,
And well-weigh’d choice;–A task injoin’d refuse,
Unless a monarch should command your muse.
(If we may hope those golden times to see,
When bards become the care of majesty.)
Free and spontaneous the smooth numbers glide,
Where choice determines, and our wills preside;
But, at command, we toil with fruitless pain,
And drag th’ involuntary load in vain.
Nor, at its birth, indulge your warm desire,
On the first glimm’ring of the sacred fire;
Defer the mighty task, and weigh your pow’r;
And every part in every view explore;
And let the theme in different prospects roll
Deep in your thoughts, and grow into the soul.
But e’er with sails unfurld you fly away,
And cleave the bosom of the boundless sea;
A fund of words and images prepare,
And lay the bright materials up with care.
Which, at due time, occasion may produce,
All rang’d in order for the poet’s use.
Some happy objects by meer chance are brought
From hidden causes to th’ unconscious thought;
Which if once